DIY Valentine’s Tea Bags

I am a coffee girl through and through. I drink tea when I am sick or maybe I’ll sneak a Chai Tea with milk once in awhile mid – afternoon on a cold winter day. Green tea does not count. Green tea is one of those things that I know is good for me so I’ll drink it but I’m still dreaming of a vanilla latte the whole time instead.

However, I know some of my friends are very loyal tea drinkers and this includes my husbands Grandma. For Christmas this past year I made her a tea gift set which included a box of handmade tea bags and wrappers. I also never seem to learn that when we go there for Christmas morning to bring a giant tumbler of coffee with me, as due to this tea addiction there is no coffee in her house.

Unless you count instant. Which really now…that’s not coffee.

So this Valentine’s Day for my daughter’s teacher, I thought given the random assumption that she’s probably gathered a lot of mugs over the years, that I would make her a tea set.

A funny thing happened as I went to do this project, I initially wanted to do hearts as the tea bags tags. And as I went to punch out the tags, my punch broke. And we had a blizzard going on outside while this was happening. So my rational husband said “No Alex, it’s not a good idea for you to go drive to Michael’s to get a new paper punch in the middle of a snowstorm”. Except that’s the tactful version of what he actually said to my complete mid irrational ranting self standing there trying to fight with the paper punch.

Onto plan B. Felt.

I figured hey you know what? I am being irrational, so let’s make a completely extra frivolous but beautiful and thoughtful gift. Because I know when you see this you will think “But aren’t the tea bags just going in the garbage after?” Maybe. Or maybe your gift recipient can just cut off the rosettes and keep them as a keepsake.

Or maybe, just maybe, for 10 minutes out the hard working day, they drink your tea like they are a Queen. Or King.

And God knows teachers deserve all the pampering they can get. I volunteer at the school. There’s a reason I give them a bottle of wine at the end of the year (that’s from me, my kids make them cards).

I started off by making a simple rosette. You take a piece of felt, cut out a circle (this was about the size of a frozen juice can lid) and cut out a spiral. You should leave a round shape in the center. That will be your base for your rosette.

Take the outer end of the spiral and begin to roll it in.

Once rolled, use a glue gun to dab a touch of glue to the round center to hold the roll.

I then cut out some felt leaves and glued them to the base.

I got some bakers twine from Regency that is a touch thinner than the average bakers twine but is excellent for crafting and threaded it through my rosettes and tea bags.

In the meantime we made some sugar heart shapes to go along with the tea set.

This is the easiest food craft ever.

For every 1/2 cup of sugar, you add 1 tsp of water in a bowl and mix well into a wet sand textured paste. Then just pat the mixture into an ice cube tray or candy mold.

Let dry (I put mine in the freezer to speed it up) and popped them out. Afterwards I let them dry for another full day to really harden.

I had a bunch of the great favor tins leftover from my Consumer Crafts post and decided it would be a great way to wrap the tea bags and sugar hearts in.

So I made an extra rosette as a tin topper.

One tin contains the tea, the other the hearts. My daughter also made her teacher a Valentine’s Card to match and that I’ll be sharing in a tutorial next week. Though I think this would make a great tea set for Mother’s Day as well.

You know for someone who’s a coffee girl, this makes me want some Earl Grey.

Get even more inspiration from my fellow Canadian bloggers. They’ve each created a little bit of loveliness for Valentine’s day.

I’m very glad to hear you say that! Each year I take this random social media poll of what a good teacher gift is and half the time you hear LCBO gift card and then the other half say Starbucks. I figure even if she’s not a tea drinker, the gesture of it will tell her how much we appreciate all her work.

I LOVE THESE! And I learned how easy it is to make sugar cubes. Now I won’t pass the discount table where I see the seasonal forms all the time and wish I could think of something to do with them.
I would also like a peek at what the originals looked like before your punch broke.
Isn’t is just amazing how our brains kick in to overdrive when we are forced to think “out of the box.”